Greg Wilson Schooled In The Classics

We were very exited to hear about Greg’s Latest project that will see him taking his first steps back into record production. Starting off with Schooled In The Classics, a series of groove based dance tunes put together to play out at his gigs, the initial tracks being first road tested in Chicago and New York last year to a great response. Greg now plans to issue 8 Schooled In The Classics tracks this year, both digitally and via 4 limited edition 180g vinyl releases. The first 2 tracks in the series, ‘12-Turn-13’ and ‘Blue Angel’, are issued this week.

Drawing inspiration from his past to record new material, Greg’s intention is not to attempt to re-create what went before, but to try to channel the more freeflowing spirit of those times. The project name, Schooled In The Classics, is a tip of the hat to the New York luminaries of the early 80’s like Tee Scott, Shep Pettibone, Larry Levan, François Kevorkian and John ‘Jellybean’ Benitez, whose experimental, dub influenced approach to dance music gifted us with so many superbly innovative club mixes, inspiring everything that followed, as dance culture emerged from the underground to explode into the mainstream glare during the late 80’s Acid House / Rave era.

During Greg’s two decade DJ hiatus, his primary occupation was that of producer, and it’s an area of work to which he has always intended to return. 2013 is a fitting year for this, being that it’s 30 years on from Greg’s original venture into production, in 1983, when he went into the studio for the first time, recording some of the demos for what would evolve into the Street Sounds ‘UK Electro’ album, on which he co-wrote / produced all but one of the tracks. It would reach #60 on the UK chart in 1984, and acquire cult status as a forbearer of what would happen a few years later in the decade, when British dance music really came into its own via a new wave of home-grown artists including Coldcut, M/A/R/R/S, Bomb The Bass and S Express, A Guy Called Gerald and 808 State.